The right-wing radio talk show hosts make a big deal about the illegality of
illegal immigration. They say it’swrong to let
illegal actions go unpunished and specifically it is wrong to let illegal
immigrants stay in the United States. Deport them all, is their solution.

But why is it illegal for people to migrate across the U.S.-Mexican border in
the first place? Why not make it legal, for anybody who wants to, to cross the
border?

I have heard three main reasons given for restricting immigration across the
border with Mexico:

#1) Illegal immigrants are a threat to American workers, i.e. scabs.
American workers are forced to compete with them in a race to the bottom.

#3) Illegal immigrants don’t assimilate to our culture by learning our
language and adapting to our ways; instead they keep using their own language
and then demand that we accommodate to them.

There is certainly at least a grain of truth to all three of these arguments,
and far more than a grain for #1. But this does not mean we should support
restrictions on immigration and support the police and military actions our
government carries out to enforce them.

The problems associated with illegal immigration, some very real (like #1)
and others greatly exaggerated by radio talk show hosts and demagogues, exist
because we are ruled undemocratically by a plutocracy that deliberately creates
illegal immigration as part of its effort to strengthen its power over ordinary
Americans. The plutocracy’s main fear is that we will develop the solidarity and
confidence to challenge their power and create a far more democratic and equal
world, one without a rich, privileged and domineering upper class. Yes, illegal
immigration is a problem for us, but for the plutocracy it is a major component
of the solution to their problem, which is how to control us (see #1
again.)

The plutocracy deliberately created illegal immigration as part of their
bi-partisan push to implement NAFTA. It worked like this. First, as part of the
NAFTA deal imposed on Mexico, Mexico had to
abolish the clause in its
constitution (from its revolution in 1917) that gave peasants rights to the
land. Second, NAFTA made it possible for American
agri-business to
flood Mexico
with corn (.pdf) that was super-cheap due to U.S. government agricultural subsidies.
The intended result was that nearly two million [according to CBS Evening News,
July 1, 2006] Mexican peasant farmers were driven out of
business and driven off the land, with no way to make a living and support their
families other than by migrating north.

This is a huge problem for both Mexican peasants and workers, and for
American workers. To solve the problem at its root will require a revolution
here and in Mexico so that the people for whom illegal immigration is a solution
will be out of power and the people for whom it is a problem will be in power.
Then, Mexicans will not be forced to leave their homes and families to work in a
strange place in the North. Then, Americans will not have the problems that
inevitably arise when unusually large numbers of people speaking a different
language and having a different culture are forced to migrate to foreign
communities.

In the meantime, the realistic way for the American working class to respond
to the problem of illegal immigration is to start by asking, "What is the best
thing that we, meaning working class people who control neither our government
nor our corporations, can do with respect to illegal immigrants that will
strengthen, not weaken, our class, and bring us closer to being able to make a
revolution?" Our power lies in good old-fashioned working class solidarity,
across all borders– national, race, religious, gender or ethnic.

We face a fork in the road. One direction leads to greater solidarity between
all working people in America-- natives and both legal and illegal immigrants--against the
plutocracy. The other leads to greater hostility, fear and mistrust between
native Americans and legal immigrants on the one hand and illegal immigrants on
the other hand.

Our plutocracy, speaking through the mouths of their politicians (both
parties), are doing everything they can to manipulate us into taking the road
leading to disunity between legal and illegal workers. They want to make us
unaware that the other road even exists. The conservatives call for making
illegal immigrants and anybody who helps them felons. They want to deport all
illegal immigrants immediately, and stop letting them get drivers’ licenses or
public schooling for their children. They pretend to be "pro-working class" by
saying to American workers, in particular, that the U.S.-Mexico border is "our
picket line," one that we should stop scabs from crossing, by any means
necessary.

The liberals, like Ted Kennedy, say illegal immigrants should be made to
prove they are "good workers" (meaning, for example, that they don’t go on
strike for anything, like higher wages and better working conditions) and then,
after a long and difficult process, some of them–if they are very lucky–should
be allowed to become citizens, maybe. This amounts to making illegal immigrants
an inferior caste of worker; it is pure divide and rule.

Both the conservative and the liberal politicians are trying to carry out the
plutocracy’s intention to enlist the public in support of the government
identifying illegal immigrants as a menace, as people to be dealt with harshly,
even violently if they try to cross the border without permission or exercise
rights that American citizens take for granted. The plutocracy wants to destroy
any and all international working class solidarity. It hopes to advance this aim
by turning a major section of the American working class against itself along
the line dividing illegal immigrants from other workers.

American workers need to ask, "What promotes solidarity between American and
Mexican working people?" Does it strengthen solidarity if we support our
government when it violently attacks Mexicans trying to enter the United States
looking for work (that’s what it takes, after all, to restrict immigration?)
Does it strengthen solidarity if we support our government when it hunts down
illegal immigrants to deport them? Does it strengthen solidarity if we stand
behind Ted Kennedy’s effort to make illegal immigrants promise to be "good
workers" or else face deportation? Obviously not.

What strengthens solidarity would be to do what none of the politicians want
us to even think about. Welcome our working class brothers and sisters if they
wish to come into the United States. Welcome them to join us in fighting for a
better, more equal and democratic United States. Welcome them in joining our
strikes and struggles against our plutocracy. Support them when they join us in
this struggle by standing with them against government CIS (formerly INS) goons who threaten
"uppity" illegal workers with arrest and deportation.

By the same token, treat illegal immigrants no differently from any other
worker. If they scab on our strikes or any other struggles, treat them like
scabs. Judge people not according to whether our plutocracy gives them "legal"
status or "citizen" status, but according to which side they take in the class
war.

Remember, no matter who we are, no matter if we are citizens or documented
immigrants or illegal immigrants, whenever we do anything that actually, truly
threatens the power of our plutocracy to rule over us undemocratically and to
enjoy, at our expense, power and privileges beyond imagination, we are all
treated as criminals. In the class war, the plutocracy makes it criminal to do
the right and decent thing. The right and decent thing is to ignore whether a
fellow worker is a citizen, a legal immigrant or an illegal immigrant. As in
other issues, the key is, "What approach strengthens us as a class?"